With recent figures showing tooth decay is leading reason why children are being admitted to hospital putting aside days dedicated to treating children are becoming more important than ever.
Setting up a children’s day can be relatively easy to do and needn’t cost much. Here, Regional Support Manager, Amy Hansford offers some suggestions as to how to go about organising a children’s day.
For a dedicated children’s day to be a success, what’s most important, like most things, is to get everyone in the practice on board.
Why hold them?
Many practices zone their diary so that their children’s appointments are scheduled on particular days after 4.00 pm. Picking up children and fighting through traffic at that time of day can be stressful and some practices report that families often arrive late, flustered or both. Some might even cancel last minute. Younger children can also be quite tired after a full day at school and their behaviour can suffer.
This can have an adverse effect upon the atmosphere of the practice and may not be pleasant for any adult patients who find themselves sharing a waiting room with noisy children. Holding a child only day means you can see a large number of children in one go. If you’re a mixed or NHS practice, then that’s good news for your UDAs, if you’re fully private, then it’s a great way to ensure your ‘future plan patients’ enjoy coming to the practice. Having specific days where child patients are treated exclusively can be a good way of ensuring a better experience for everyone.
Get the timing right
Holding a dedicated children’s day in your dental practice every school holiday gives you the chance to hold six or seven of them each year. You may like to experiment with which day of the week you pick, but often working parents choose to take a Monday or Friday off work to be with their children, so they might be good days to try first.
For the longer summer holidays, it’s a good idea to organise two days, one at the beginning and the other at the end. This will give people more opportunities to come along.
Making things fun on the day
If you’re going to have a day dedicated solely to treating children, then it needs to be fun, and there are lots of things you can do to dial up the fun factor for the day.
Having all the practice team members dress up as well known characters can be a great way of engaging children. What child wouldn’t want to be greeted by Peppa Pig, Paddington or Mickey Mouse? Getting dressed up, as well as being fun, can help make the atmosphere less clinical and intimidating for children.
Having a theme and decorating the practice to match it can help make things special. Christmas and Easter are fairly simple, and there are plenty of low-cost decorations available these days to zhuzh up your public areas. Halloween is another easy win for October half-term and you can let your imagination run riot for the other breaks. Perhaps a ‘love your smile’ theme would be good for February and Valentine’s Day, or seaside theme for summer. Use your team meetings to kick about some ideas.
It’s also important to make sure there are things for children to do such as colouring or craft making. Face painting is something that is often popular with children. You could book someone to come and do that for you, or you may have a talented member of staff who would like to take on that role. Have a look and see what’s on offer locally in the way of kids’ entertainers for more ideas.
Children love to have something to take home with them when they’ve been to an event. Consider having tooth friendly giveaways such as balloons or stickers. It’s also an ideal opportunity to give them a free children’s toothbrush and reward chart.
Your aim is to make their visit something to enjoy so that when they walk into the surgery they feel at ease and view going to the dentist as a positive experience.
Planning is key
It’s important to be organised and publicise your dates well in advance. Make sure you include something in your recall communications and post things on your website to alert people to when you’re holding your children’s days. Don’t forget to make use of your social media channels as well.
As you’re trying to create more of a party atmosphere you may want to take the opportunity to do some charity fundraising by holding a raffle or guessing the name of a teddy. This can give you another chance to publicise what you’re doing, either through your own social channels or via the local media. These days, they may not be able to send a journalist or photographer to cover the event but will probably be grateful for an image and a bit of a write up from you.
Running the clinical part
Apart from emergencies, all appointments on the day should only be for children. This is a day when a patient running late should not be a problem. Having entertainment and things for them to do will make life more pleasant for anyone having to wait to be slotted in.
As your child patient may need things other than a quick examination with the dentist, it’s a good idea to ensure your hygienists and therapists are also on hand to apply some varnish, fissure sealants or to offer some guidance on teeth cleaning technique. This can be extremely helpful to parents as everything gets done during a single visit rather than having to come back again during term time. Again, there’s plenty to keep the children entertained if they need to wait.
To sum up, these are the six key things to remember to ensure your children’s day is a success:
- Make sure the whole team commits – get everyone onboard, including the dentists. If you all commit to dressing up for the day, then nobody can feel singled out for looking silly
- Give people plenty of notice – give your patients at least a month’s notice with their recalls to allow plenty of time to book. Hopefully, they will start to book their next appointment with each visit
- Keep the entertainment going so the children are happy – happy children make happy parents which makes everyone’s life easier and more pleasant
- Be quite strict with zoning of the diary – consider that a sixteen-year-old might not enjoy being invited to attend a day dedicated to children and might be better suited to your normal appointment times
- Encourage people to turn up early – this will give the children time to get involved in the activities before their appointment, so they won’t miss out
- Make the most of your PR opportunities – a children’s day is like gold dust for your social channels. However, it’s essential to make sure to get parents’ permission before taking and posting any photos of the children.
Follow these suggestions and you should have a successful and fun day!
